until i have kids of my own, photos of haley and me from the 90's will have to suffice.

don't we have a clever mom? we even have pumpkin leggings on. and velcro shoes, oversized bows, and those plastic jack-o-lantern candy carriers. cool. and am i already taller than haley here? weird.

have a happy halloween.

i can't remember when i've felt so satisfied with a $7.50 purchase.

you'll want to get yourself a ticket to this. i watched the whole thing with wide eyes and an occasional shaking of the head or squeezing of grant's hand. i couldn't believe what i was getting to see. remember what i said 6 months ago? last night, my dream almost came true. it was like having a front row seat at the concert of all concerts.

and i'm happy to report that it was done well.

the movie was respectful, lighthearted, and entertaining beyond my expectations. everything about both movie and concert was 100% classy. you see michael at the top of his game, performing the songs you love, hearing his music exactly as you remember it. this it it was truly going to be an extraordinary production, entirely for the fans, and the movie focuses on that. the opposite of somber and mournful, you see these rehearsals in a celebratory light. i feel like even though it was never performed, this is it was his triumph.

oh, and if you're like me, you're going to love the way you make me feel, thriller, and i want you back.

go see it. you'll have fun.

ps. think i will dig up an old photo of my twin and me in costume for halloween tomorrow. that's always fun. (for us and our mom.)

greetings. i am an apartment dweller yet.

we have not closed on the house, nor have i had the slightest thought about packing. things are at a standstill, and that is fine with me. i need some time to catch my breath and maybe bake. we're thinking things might start rolling once we hit november. but there is some news.. we've been doing some painting. you can see the color i chose for the new kitchen in the advertisement above. it's the buttery looking square. {sweet idea for a little girl's room, right? the pattern is called 'neapolitan delight'. too cute.} i knew that i wanted something light because it is such a small kitchen, and something warm because i like to feel cozy. so i aimed somewhere between classy creamy white and very mellow yellow. hopefully i got it right. we went with macaroni by martha stewart. thoughts?

and on today's agenda..

shortly.. preschool, pumpkin party today.

later.. meat market, pick up ground beef.

tonight.. off to the 'big city.' dinner + a movie.

have a merry day. i'm wearing orange and ready to party with my 4 year olds.

i am celebrating because it is still fall. that bit of snow we got back on october the 10th is nowhere to be seen. the leaves are still flying their brilliant colors. woohoo. i was scared for a little while. would hate to have winter start too soon. so in honor of the state of still fall, something random and even a tad romantic.

grant and i wrote letters to each other this summer. in the letters, we each made a list of things we want to do together someday. then we exchanged letters and compiled all of our objectives into one giant list. and, of course, we put it in notebook, where it will never get lost and we can check things off as we go. pretty soon we are going to check the box that says 'move into our own home.' cool.

such an easy undertaking, but really fun. seeing what the other list-maker wrote down is maybe the best part. you could even convert this idea into a little date, if you are so inclined. maybe take your fellow lister to a little cafe and order a slice of carrot cake to split as you write your lists. wish i had thought of that before. one more thing. if you do it all in writing, i think that is so freeing. that way nothing gets shot down because it sounds too simple or common or immature. in pen, the words can be perfect. let no thing go unwritten. here are a few items from the g + s list.

1. sleep in a cabin during a storm

2. travel by train

3. keep some kind of garden

4. ride rockin' roller coaster at disneyworld

5. eat in a famous restaurant

6. play a duet

7. see ferris bueller's day off

8. do a crossword puzzle

9. sit in a coffeeshop and use their wi-fi

10. read through the entire bible together

11. see one of our favorite musicals on stage

12. eat at pinkberry again

13. put together a big puzzle

14. go out to breakfast

15. watch all episodes of arrested development and the star wars movies (again)

16. go to a special showing of an old movie in a cool theatre

a few reminders for today. tuesday, october 27, 2009.

no. 1 last year, a few of you mentioned that you would like to join me in my little non-scrapbooking venture. if that is still the case, this is your reminder to save any and all catalogs + magazines that turn up in your mailbox from now until christmas. there is plenty of free glossy paper out there, you just have to start stashing. december will be here before we know it.

no. 2 today you can pre-order john mayer's new album battle studies. hope it's a good one.

no. 3 this cool book goes on sale (and on my christmas list) today. check out the cool blog that goes with it. and the cool guy that wrote it. he reminds me of classy danny kaye.

no. 4 don't forget.. daylight savings time ends this weekend. more time for trick-or-treating.

no. 5 it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown is on abc tonight. don't miss.

no. 6 only 59 days until christmas.

no. 7 this is it premieres tomorrow. we're going to see it on thursday.

life is good'n'busy.

early alarms and late nights. preschool. a dinner party. football. making 14 pies in the camp kitchen (of the pumpkin pecan, autumn ice cream, and sour cream apple variety). grocery shopping at 11 pm. serving 100+ people a grand supper. and priming + painting our new kitchen.

in other news, tomorrow night we have a little fall program for our preschool. the kids will get up on stage and stumble through all the words to our songs and try to keep up with the actions and be utterly adorable. i hope. at the end they get to take home a balloon, so it'll all be good.

in other news, my hands have hundreds of tiny cuts and cracks from hard water and dry air. grant says that i wash my hands a ridiculous amount, and he is really right, but i can't seem to stop myself. does anybody have a heavy-duty, non-vanilla smelling lotion for me to try? preferably something that won't leave my fingers greasy for the next 14 hours?

in other news, my favorite fall threads are the farm girl shirt and a handmedown 100% silk long-sleever from my mother-in-law. superthin and superwarm. i'm trying to fit it under everything.

in other news, i have the tv on right now. during the day. so weird for me. but today, the pioneer woman is on the bonnie hunt show and i am not going to miss out.

in other news, i have discovered two good things about walmart.

1. a tiny cup of flawless chocolate ice cream. $1.00 gets you perfect brownie fudge taste. i'm happy.

2. sam. he's the guy at the paint department, and he is tops. he matched my martha stewart paint swatches perfectly, he enlightened us about primer, and he reminded us of our friend bryant. grant and i agreed, we would have bought anything from sam. we wished he would have walked around the entire store with us and advised us on how to spend our money.

must skedaddle.

there is a treadmill i must visit, chicken to put in the crockpot, and an apartment to clean because a potential buyer is coming to look at it this afternoon. have a killer monday.

good morning!

and it really is a good morning because 1. i have a bunch of top-notch little books to add to my list. big thanks to you all. and 2. today i'm talking about coffeecake miniatures.

intensely moist coffeecake in a muffin, guys.

so we've started another list at our house. and as grant and i are both major list-makers, this comes as no surprise. (but you already knew that about me, didn't you?) happily for us, circus ponies (how fab is that name?) makes this handy dandy mac application called notebook, and my father in law hooked us up with it. yay and thank you, steve.

grant relies heavily on notebook for keeping everything in order and duly noted and properly prioritized, and i just plain love it. under the summer tab you'll see grocery lists, my 'get @ target' list, gift ideas, short term goals, someday goals, recipes, to-do lists, and more. most recently added is a list of things we want our kids to read|experience someday.

the mr. men and little miss books are definitely on our list. haley, remember these? i bet you are laughing at the mr. bump picture. if the library here in my small town does not have these books, i do not know what i will do. i just want to run over there right this minute and check. there is something in me that does not want to buy all the good books for my kids but instead let them find the joy of borrowing them from the library like i did. i lived on library books. mom, thank you for taking me to that musty-smelling building time after time and letting me fill my arms with way too many books for me to finish before the due date. i love you for that.

while we were at mom and dad's house last week, i picked up a few of our old classic bedtime books. you'll see some of them on the list below, along with some other 'must reads' for our kids. and just look at this. (make sure you scroll to the bottom.) even handily categorized by age. i dream about lists like this. such a marvelous resource. can't wait to add some of these to my checklist.

1. milk and cookies

2. elsie dinsmore

3. the boxcar children

4. goodnight moon

5. sand cake

6. the 'b' book

7. but no elephants

8. the hardy boys & nancy drew

9. ira sleeps over

10. green eggs and ham

11. corduroy

12. dr. de soto

13. the velveteen rabbit

14. the berenstain bears forget their manners

15. and too much junk food

16. the jolly postman

okay, last photo of this catalog. i promise. isn't this room pretty? doesn't it make you want to scatter little white candles on your staircase?

anyway. business.

a. thank you for all the generous compliments on our pumpkins! we had a grand little contest this year and even though i was not the winner, i did finish first. meaning i sat and scarfed kit-kats and watched the rest of hannah montana while everybody was still poking and sawing their 'kins. this was kind of a big deal, because i am known for slowness. so hooray to that.

b. my nail polish, which some of you asked about and is maybe the real reason i posted this picture today, is deeply violet by sally hansen. the diamond strength bottle. i love love love it. it's basically a poor girl's lincoln park after dark and i'll have you know: it's on my fingers and toes. not very often does the matching happen, so that says a lot about this shade of polish. it's versatile. and amazing.

c. i can't stop thinking about something i recently read by elizabeth elliot. she simply said: you can create a climate for your husband and home, according to your attitude. this is all too true. i see it all the time; my mood determines the tone of the house. i create my own climate. in essence, if i want my new house to be a place of beauty, peace and good cheer, i need to start with myself, rather than a can of paint or pottery barn gift card.

it would be better for me to have a not so great looking living room filled with cheerful smiles and happy hearts than to have a picture-perfect one if it housed moodiness, whining, and harsh words. (or, to quote a proverb, 'better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.') it is so important for me to be aware of this, as i am the home maker and the atmosphere of that home is the world grant returns to when he comes home from work. it is the world our guests venture into. i want them to feel cozy and content in this spot; it should be a peaceful refuge from the hard world. i need to take responsibility for the tone i bring to the table.

so, in a sense, i can start making my new home lovely even before moving in, just by having a good attitude from the get-go. no matter the furniture arrangements or expensive purchases or decor that will be 'so 2009' in a short while or how much it looks or does not look like pottery barn, it will be our home. and ultimately, the attitudes in it will determine how truly pretty and welcoming it is. i need to remind myself of this when i get wrapped up in all the materialness. am making it a point to be cheerful always, for the sake of my beautifying my home.

and that's what was on my mind this morning.

man oh man.

i am completely idea-laden after seeing the latest pottery barn catalog. {i say idea-laden because there's no way i'd be laden with online cart items or a real shopping list or something that requires a credit card like that. no, not so much. on a budget and overpriced don't really gel. but, hey, ideas are cool. and way cheap.} this is definitely a stopandstudyeachpage issue. i even had to do a second look-through. i even had to run to the desk and grab paper + pen to jot down all the prettiness. i even had to take pictures of the pictures. it's that good. or i'm that desperate for dreamy holiday decor. one of the two.

for awhile there i thought i was so over pb, but they've redeemed themselves big time with this extra-thick-and-pretty number. maybe it's the fact that there was snow on the rooftops all last week or knowing that i'm going to be in a brand new house for christmas, but i was completely smitten with this maybe-a-little-too-early holiday issue. where normally i might not want to give in to prematurely lit trees and draped garland and wrapped gifts in october, i'm finding they are all too welcome in my mind this year. plus, there are some different set-ups in this catalog and i always love it when they start showing new rooms.. those old ones get redone so much that after awhile i start to loathe the sight of them. anyway. on to the good things. i am loving the

1. rich white walls

2. lanterns + creamy pillar candles

3. magnolia wreaths in the windows

4. buffalo check bedding

5. wrapped gifts out 'n' about

6. flatware stored in pretty goblets

7. giant linen pinboards

8. rectangular glass vases

9. tiny white votive candles

10. silver beads mixed in the garland

11. oversized pinecones

12. tall white mugs for hot cocoa

13. twine and newspaper wrapping

14. soft ivory quilts

15. white pumpkins

i think i must be going through a white-ivory-cream-neutral thing right now.

not to worry. after we get past thanksgiving i will be 100% ready for red + green.

today we leave for our little two-day fall getaway. we are going to my hometown in nebraska where we will shop for paint colors and shower curtain rods, eat at chipotle, spend time with sisters, drink coffee (grant will pass on this), and carve pumpkins. i cannot wait to get there. homecomings are extra sweet at that house. mom will most likely have candles burning and dinner cooking and our room all spiffed up. she's a whiz at hostessing.

i am taking the november issue as reading material for the car trip. it came in the mail yesterday, but i am making myself wait to open a single page until we get on the interstate. we'll see how their 'pie crust 101' differs from what i learned at grandma marian's class.

maybe i will take some photos of our pumpkins once they are all sliced up and ready to be judged. and maybe i will stop in and say hi while i'm at mom and dad's house. and maybe i will share my favorite ideas from the pottery barn thanksgiving catalog. maybe.

{sidenote.. i am amazed at how many of you are leaving me little notes and spilling your thoughts on the new house! truly, thanks a million. hearing what you like about it makes me love it even more.. and hearing that you dream of places like it makes me treasure it all the more. i know that i have so much to be thankful for. i am just rejoicing over and over.

ps. am blown away by how many mentioned christmas in the comments! too sweet. it's like you were reading my mind. how did you know that i would be planning where to put the tree when it's only october 14th? we are so funny. christmas decorating is way up high on my list of favorite things in this world. maybe top five, even. so glad you guys are with me on this.}

catch you on the other end of this week and happy day to you!

more good news. it's not too late to start listening in.

i am hosting a new venture with ashley .. a bible study blog. if you're interested in studying esther (via beth moore) with us, please pop in anytime. i would love to see your faces over there. we're just getting our feet wet with this exciting idea and our goal is to make studying God's word together as accessible and schedule-friendly as possible. bible studies are amazing things, but sometimes it can be hard to find one that you can stick with in this hustle + bustle world. we hope this method will turn out to be the perfect fit for some of you. and in case you're swamped right now, we will be starting another book in a matter of weeks, so stay tuned for information about upcoming studies!

'let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another..'

colossians 3.16

yesterday.. yellow. today.. white.

and so it begins. the first of many mornings that require running to the window.

happy first snow to everyone who got some!

grant and i are having nachos to celebrate.

happy friday. it is perfect fall today and my mind is on wonderful things. good books and cleaning and the post office and research and a coming-up chat with mom. and i have cloudless blue sky and banana bread in my system with which to tackle these things.

the banana bread came from preschool yesterday, where we baked banana bread because we are studying the letter 'b' this week. how lucky are we? judy has the cutest mini loaf pans and i am itching to find one just like hers for not too much money. any suggestions for me on this? i am also looking out for a pastry cutter, perfect soda fountain glasses, a cookie scoop, a could-be-passed-on-through-the generations cookie press, a mini muffin pan, and just lately.. a waffle iron. but i'm not in any rush to have them. (neither am i dropping hints of gift ideas.) through the years i hope to find sweet deals as i scoop up all of these luxuries. acquiring the perfectly equipped kitchen must be done carefully, thoughtfully, and over the course of a lifetime, because it creates delightful memories (as in someday i might say, 'oh, remember when i didn't have that cuisinart food processor and did all my chopping by hand!') and requires way too much money to shell out in one sitting. so for now i will continue using a tablespoon to scoop my cookie dough and a fork to cut butter into flour and will only have waffles and christmas tree shaped spritz cookies from other people's kitchens and will eat regular-sized muffins and i will be happy about it! no pity for me, please.

the list | number ten

109. trees with pretty red leaves

081. using real shaving gel (i just use whatever soap is handy most times)

694. restaurants that play jazz music

340. mega size movie theatres

703. counters with nothing on them

090. eating pizza right out of the box

150. down comforters

550. mums + pumpkins on porches

457. hitchcock's 'north by northwest'

255. charlie brown music

561. grandma's special juice glasses

373. playing dutch blitz (even though i'm slow.)

689. watching movies with large groups of people

707. watching movies with people who don't talk through the whole thing

632. wearing boots

382. splitting a panera cinnamon crunch bagel with a sister

i have finally mastered the perfectly-yellow-yolked hardboiled egg. no greenish grayish gunk around the edges. want to know how i did it? i will happily share my secret, which is actually no secret at all. i found the recipe nestled in the corner of a magazine article two years ago. it was there for everyone to see, 'easy eggs,' but i wonder how many people ripped it out and tucked it away like i did. eggs are very important to me.

okay, here it is.

01. place eggs in a single layer in a saucepan and cover them with about 1 inch of cold water.

02. bring the water to a boil, cover tightly, and remove from heat; let stand about 20 minutes.

03. transfer eggs to a bowl of ice water and let stand until completely cooled.

there's really no trick to it at all, you just have to be precise.

let's conquer that hateful ring. good luck to you all.

ps. chelsea, thank you for sharing your grandma's delicious sour cream tip for my deviled eggs. they were tops.

a muddle of things for a rainy monday.

as promised, i present the final product. my first true from-scratch apple pie.

i ate a piece while it was hot and messy. and i liked it. i am growing up.

this morning i packed up my apron, pie plate, and a couple spare apples and went to pie-making class at grandma marian's house. yes, that grandma marian. she graciously had a bunch of us grandkids and spouses over to her kitchen to teach us the art of her apple pie. which, by the way, won first prize at the county fair. this is totally her specialty. and we got to learn a few of her special tips. yay. i feel so privileged to be in the inner circle of this blue ribbon pie. grant is going to be so proud of me, he loves his grandma's famous treat. i would definitely recommend you find a grandma to take you under her wing and teach you a thing or two about this classic skill. she may even send you home with a bowl of hot ham & bean soup for lunch. mine did.

a few things i learned in my lessons today.

1. crimping the edges is my favorite part. (mom, your thumb method never fails me.)

2. water is terribly important.

3. patience is even more important.

i promise an update once my pie is done baking, provided it looks presentable.

ps. now this is how you say hello to october.

even though it's suddenly and officially chilly around here, i am determined not to turn the heat on in our house for a couple more weeks. we'll see how long i can last. a few nights in a row grant has offered to turn it on for me (i'm always the cold one. i honestly feel sorry for poor grant having to bear the icyness of my fingers and toes all the time.), but i've optimistically said that i can go a little while longer without it. it's kind of fun putting it off and roughing it. we've added 'the winter blanket' to our bed already and yesterday i sported two pairs of socks to preschool. one of which i stole from grant's stash of good, thick hunting socks.

eventually, though, i will have to face the fact that i live in minnesota and winter temps come early (and stay late). eventually i will turn on the furnace, and i will rejoice in its rumbling and blowing. you see, i really look forward to the first turning on of the furnace every year. it's an event. growing up, when dad decided that it was time, my sisters and i would get all smiley as we popped into each others bedrooms to announce, 'dad's turning on the furnace today!' i remember the rich, musty-warm smell of it so clearly. mm.. love that smell. i can't wait.